NXT
Date:
December 25, 2014
Location:
Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators:
Jason Albert, Rich Brennan, Alex Riley
Hosts:
Renee Young, Corey Graves
Reviewed by Tommy Hall
Back
in the 1980s, Fritz Von Erich had a great insight about Christmas:
Once you open the presents, what else is there to do? Well
apparently we can watch NXT, which is on a roll as of late. The main
story coming out of last week was Kevin Owens destroying Adrian
Neville just like he did to Sami Zayn the week before. Let's get to
it.
Opening
sequence.
And
we have an empty arena with only Renee Young and Corey Graves in the
ring, meaning we have a Best Of show. There will however be a new
match with Charlotte defending the Women's Title against Sasha Banks
in an R-Evolution rematch.
We
start by looking at some of the stars who came from NXT up to the
main roster, including Paige, Bo Dallas, Lana and Rusev. There's
nothing to say here as they're just saying the names and showing
maybe a ten second clip.
Video
on NXT: Arrival. That feels so long ago even though it was only
February.
This
leads to a package of Adrian Neville going home to Newcastle,
England. Wearing glasses, which is an odd look on a wrestler for
some reason, he goes to see his mom and talks about soccer for
awhile. His original plans were to play soccer for Newcastle United
but then he saw something called WWF and things changed. We get some
clips of his training and developing the high spots, which we then
see in NXT. He even got to wear a Newcastle jersey to his match in
the Newcastle arena for a very cool moment.
Tyler
Breeze is still off modeling but wants to tell all the Wannabreeze
that he'll be adding gold to his ensemble in 2015.
We
see the last six or so minutes of Zayn vs. Neville, plus the entire
post match celebration and Owens' heel turn to end the show.
Curtis
Axel comes in to see Regal and thinks he needs to recharge his
career. He wants in on this NXT thing but Regal tells him to make an
appointment.
Lucha
Dragons video. Sin Cara still hates to do the pre-match pose.
Vaudevillains
video, of course in black and white.
We
get about four minutes of the Lucha Dragons vs. Vaudevillians match
from R-Evolution. There will be a rematch due to Kalisto pinning the
wrong man.
Next
week we'll have Finn Balor/Hideo Itami vs. Ascension II.
Itami
and Balor promise to destroy the Ascension. Itami's English is
improving by leaps and bounds.
We
look at some NXT debuts this year, including Baron Corbin, Bull
Dempsey, Hideo Itami, Finn Balor and of course Kevin Owens.
Owens
says he's sent the former champion and the new champion to the
hospital in the span of seven days. If he's done that to people he
considers friends, what is he going to do to people he doesn't care
about? He'll fight anyone and everyone until he's the only one
standing. “Why don't you put that on a t-shirt?”
Time
to look at NXT people making splashes on the main roster: Paige, Bo
Dallas, Emma, Summer Rae, Adam Rose, Rusev and Lana.
Earlier
this week, Bayley was watching the HHH DVD to see how he came back
from his knee injury. It motivates her to come back bigger, better
and stronger, just like HHH. So she's gaining 40lbs of unnecessary
muscle, slowing down and stopping everything that made her awesome in
the first place?
Women's
Title: Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte
Sasha
is challenging and this is a rematch from R-Evolution. She has Becky
Lynch with her, so Charlotte comes out with her dad, Ric Flair. Ric
looks sober tonight so this should be good. He says that he has two
Hall of Fame rings (only wearing one here) but his daughter took the
torch from him. Two weeks ago Sasha and Charlotte had one of the
best matches ever (to Sasha: “Yeah I'm talking about you. You were
great.”) and tonight they're going to do it again.
They
slug it out to start with Sasha diving at the champ, only to get
caught in something like a spinebuster. Charlotte goes after the
knee by wrapping it around the post, only to get pulled face first
into the steel. We take a break and come back with Sasha in control
and slapping Charlotte on the back. That's not exactly the best
offense. The announcers actually mention the “internet wrestling
community” sending HHH a fruit basket as a thank you for
R-Evolution. That's such a cool story.
Banks
drives two knees into Charlotte's ribs and puts on Bankrupt, only to
have Charlotte fight to her feet and escape with something like a
jawbreaker. She's really good at using her athleticism to get out of
things like that, which really isn't something most of the other
women can do. Charlotte fires off some chops and a neckbreaker but
gets caught in a double arm neckbreaker (Regal Cutter) for two more.
The
Banks Statement goes on but it's right next to the ropes. Another
thing I like about NXT: heels feel like they could win a big match by
submission. That's what always annoyed me about heel Del Rio: he
wasn't going to make anyone big tap and the armbreaker felt like a
waste of time. They fight up top with Banks nailing a nice superplex
(Riley: “She's straight gangsta!”), only to get caught in the
Figure Four with the bridge to retain Charlotte's title at 10:45.
Rating:
C+. While
it was nowhere near as good as the R-Evolution match, it was still
another solid effort from the NXT girls. Banks is impressing me in
the ring for the first time as she's very feisty in there. She has
the attitude down and the matches are getting better every week. I
still think Lynch is the star of the team, but Banks is nailing it in
NXT.
Overall
Rating: C+. These are always
hard to grade so I'll just go with the same rating I gave the match.
I really liked the Neville video as it's the kind of personalized
profile that you just do not get in WWE anymore. I would have liked
to see more Sami here as he only won the title at the end of the year
but he was still a huge part of NXT all year. The
attention to detail in this promotion blows away everything else and
it's my favorite wrestling show to watch every week. If
next year is as good as this one was, everything will be fine.
Results
Charlotte
b. Sasha Banks – Figure Four
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